1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a count system for counting a number of peripheral devices connected to a personal computer and for counting a user-number of software installed in the personal computer, further, the present invention relates to a royalty settling system for settling a royalty in accordance with the counted number.
2. Description of the Related Art
A digital camera and so forth are connected to a personal computer as a peripheral device to which application software (hereinafter called as software) pertains to be used for the peripheral device. This kind of the software is not always produced by a manufacturer of the peripheral device. Some of the software are supplied from a personal software developer and a software developing company.
A manufacturer of the peripheral device pays a royalty to a right holder of the software when receiving the software from the outside thereof. Payment ways of the royalty are different dependently on contractual matter. For example, a sum is paid in accordance with a number of the sold peripheral devices, and the royalty is paid in accordance with a number of the software for which user registration is completed.
In the case that the royalty is paid in accordance with the sold number, a number of products existing in distribution is also counted so that the royalty is likely to be overly paid rather than the actual sold number. Moreover, not all users having purchased the peripheral device use the software pertaining thereto. Hence, the manufacturer of the peripheral device loses on a profit.
In the system that the royalty is paid in accordance with the number of the software for which the user registration is completed, it takes time for the user to perform the procedure of the user registration. Further, some users use the software without the user registration so that the right holder loses on a profit.
In order to solve the above problems, it is proposed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 7-219763 that a number of users is counted when the software is booted, by utilizing an identification number of a personal computer in which the software is installed. However, when the sole user operates a plurality of personal computers, the user registration is performed plural times so that it is impossible to correctly count the number of users.